


Rescue Mission

by equivocalEternity



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Imp POV, Imp-centric, Mild Angst, Misunderstandings, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Season/Series 04, Unreliable Narrator, hordak is FINE okay he is handling it VERY MATURELY, imp is surprisingly well adjusted all things considered
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 09:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25468636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/equivocalEternity/pseuds/equivocalEternity
Summary: If Entrapta’s not coming back on her own, then they need to bring her back.And if Hordak won’t do it, then Imp will.
Relationships: Entrapta & Imp (She-Ra), Entrapta/Hordak (She-Ra), Hordak & Imp (She-Ra)
Comments: 48
Kudos: 172





	1. Chapter 1

Imp is bored. Bored bored bored. The Force Captains’ quarters are boring, the Black Garnet room is boring, even the prison cells are boring. Everywhere is _boring,_ and Imp just wants something fun to do.

Imp misses Entrapta. Entrapta is fun, and nice, and she talks a lot, sometimes just to hear Imp say it back to her. Imp likes doing that. Entrapta will say something long, and complex, and Imp will say it back perfectly, because Imp can say _anything_ perfectly, no matter how hard it is. It’s one of his Jobs, and Imp is the best at his Jobs. His Jobs are to Sneak, and Spy, and Speak, and he’s better than anyone at doing all those things. 

But right now, there’s nothing to do. Everyone is asleep or on a Mission, which means they might be gone for ages, and when they come back they’ll be tired and boring, so he doesn’t have anyone to Spy on except Hordak, and he can’t Spy on Hordak right now. Hordak is in Yelling Mood Three. He’s been in Yelling Mood Three a lot, lately. Hordak has a lot of Yelling Moods, but Yelling Mood Three is the worst one. When Hordak is in a Yelling Mood, Imp isn’t allowed in the Sanctum, but Yelling Mood Three means if he goes in anyway, then Hordak will mean it when he yells _Get Out._ Yelling Mood Three is serious. Yelling Mood Three is for pain. So Imp can’t go in the Sanctum, and he can’t Sneak, or Spy. All that’s left to do is Speak, but he’s gone through all his favorite clips, and he doesn’t want to Speak to himself.

He wants Entrapta.

He doesn’t understand why she’s gone. Hordak liked her, and Imp liked her, and she liked them. She had charts, and graphs, and Data, and she showed Imp. She said _Data doesn’t lie, and the Data says we’re friends._ Entrapta doesn’t lie either, so Imp believed her. Imp likes that Entrapta doesn’t lie, even though that makes her boring to Spy on, because she doesn’t mind when people hear what she says when she’s alone. She records herself, on purpose, and when Imp Spies on her and Speaks when she didn’t know he was listening, she’ll just laugh, because she was already recording. Sometimes she doesn’t even notice him, or she’s too busy to respond, and then she’s boring too, but mostly she’s fun.

...Maybe Hordak’s in a different Mood now.

Imp flies along the ceiling, propelling himself on hanging pipes and wires as he goes. He makes sure to be quiet as he reaches the Sanctum. He can’t hear Hordak, but he knows he’s inside. Hordak has been going on Missions lately—sometimes he even brings Imp along—but he stayed behind this time.

Imp crawls inside silently, and clings to the top of a large pillar. Hordak is at one of his worktables, working on his arm cannon. He doesn’t look angry. Imp launches from the pillar, and lands on the worktable. Even when he’s in a Good Mood, Hordak doesn’t like being surprised, so Imp doesn’t land on him, and doesn’t try to be quiet. Hordak doesn’t look up at Imp’s arrival, but his ears twitch and angle towards him, so Imp knows Hordak noticed him.

“What is it, little spy?” Hordak doesn’t sound angry, either. He’s probably in Working Mood One. Working Mood One is good. It means he’s focused and happy. 

“[Entrapta,]” Imp says.

Hordak stiffens. His hands clench, and the screwdriver he’s holding snaps.

“Imp. I told you not to say that name.” 

“[Entrapta,]” Imp says again.

“ _Stop,_ ” Hordak hisses. “Entrapta is gone.”

“[Where?]” Imp uses a clip of Entrapta’s voice to ask it. 

Hordak curls his shoulders in and looks away. “She...went back to the Princess Rebellion. She _left_ us.”

Imp scrunches his face in disbelief. Why would she leave? She was happy here. She didn’t want to leave. 

“[—Stolen,]” Imp says.

“No. She was not stolen. She left us. She betrayed us.” Hordak pounds a fist on the table. “She’s just like all the rest of the Princesses. I should not have trusted her.”

Imp hisses. “[You’re wrong. You’re wrong. You’re wrong.]”

Hordak hisses back, and throws the broken screwdriver at him. “Enough! I am working, and you are distracting me. I don’t want you to ask about _her_ ever again. Now get out!”

Imp screeches angrily at him and leaves, growling to himself. He’s wrong. Entrapta wouldn’t betray them. They’re better than the Rebellion. They have a Sanctum. The Rebellion doesn’t have a Sanctum.

He flies through the halls aimlessly, tail thrashing. He wants Entrapta back. Entrapta needs to come back.

His ear twitches at a distant sound, and he perks up, landing on a pipe. It’s coming from outside, he realizes. The Mission must be over. Imp speeds down the halls towards the transport bay. Scorpia is unloading a transport when he gets there. She drops a box, and Catra comes out of the transport and yells at her. Imp hides on top of the transport to Spy. He _hates_ Catra, but she’s good to Spy on. Scorpia is boring, but she’s around Catra a lot, so she’s good to Spy on too.

Imp watches them as they talk. They aren’t saying anything important, and Imp’s about to leave, but—

“Hurry up with unloading, we’re moving out again soon.”

Imp cocks his head.

“Oh! Sure thing, Catra, lemme just—whoops, hold on, I got it. Boy, that was close. Where are we going?”

“Just a village near Bright Moon,” Catra says. “I’m staying behind, but you’re going to go capture it to keep the Princesses on their toes. We want them nervous and distracted, so if there’s a fight, draw it out for as long as you can, got it?”

“Will do! But, um, why do we need them distracted?”

“If they’re paying attention to meaningless skirmishes, then they’ll be spread too thin to stop us from winning the important battles. No, no, that goes over—watch it!”

Scorpia rushes to pick up the box she dropped. ”Sorry, Catra!”

“Whatever,” Catra says, but her tail is puffed up. ”Just—hurry up. We don’t have all day.”

“Sorry, sorry, I’m on it!”

Scorpia picks up the last crate and walks off. Catra follows her, bristling and loud.

Imp watches them leave, curling his tail in thought. Bright Moon means Princesses. Princesses means Entrapta.  If Entrapta’s not coming back on her own, then they need to bring her back.

And if Hordak won’t do it, then Imp will.


	2. Chapter 2

Imp lurches with the shuddering and jolting of the transport. Whoever’s driving is awful. Imp would go scold them, maybe with _[Useless!]_ or _[Pathetic!]_ , but he has to stay hidden.

He’s never been outside of the Fright Zone without Hordak before. He’s not even sure if he _is_ out of the Fright Zone yet—he’s tucked himself away in a corner where no one will find him, but it also means he can’t see outside at all. The only window is the windshield up front, and he’s in a corner in the back, tucked behind stacks of boxes.

The transport hits _another_ bump, and Imp nearly goes flying. He hisses—quietly, of course. He’s good at staying quiet, no matter how angry he is. He’s much better at that than Hordak, or Shadow Weaver, or Catra. They’re all absolutely terrible at being quiet when they’re mad. He doesn’t blame Hordak, though, since Hordak doesn’t try to Sneak like Shadow Weaver and Catra do. Or like Shadow Weaver used to, since she’s gone now. Just thinking of Shadow Weaver makes Imp bristle. He _hates_ Shadow Weaver, and he’s glad she’s gone. He hopes she never comes back. He hopes she’s _dead._ Shadow Weaver was terrible, and the only good thing about her was she was always Up To Something, which meant Imp always had someone to Spy on. She thought she was good at Sneaking, but it was always obvious where she was, since she would take shadows with her. Imp’s pretty sure she did it on purpose, because she didn’t always bother, but that just made it worse. Everyone knows that you should never bring attention to yourself unless you want it. Everyone except Shadow Weaver and Catra, apparently. At least Catra doesn’t use magic. She’s not even half bad at being quiet—as long she’s not mad. Whenever she’s mad, she yells and attacks things, and it echoes so loudly Imp can hear her dozens of halls away, and then she gets embarrassed, like she didn’t mean to draw attention to herself. What an idiot. When _Imp_ is loud, it’s always on purpose. 

One of the boxes Imp’s hiding behind shifts slightly. Imp flaps his wings nervously. He made sure not to pick a stack that’s too high as a hiding spot, but he could still get crushed if he’s not careful. He knew it would be dangerous, even if he hadn’t expected to be in danger before he’d even left the transport. Missions are dangerous, and Princesses are dangerous, and Imp isn’t made for those kinds of danger. He’s made for Sneaking and Spying and Speaking. And for getting scratches on the head.

He can do it, though. He has to find Entrapta. Entrapta makes everything better. She fixes robots when they’re broken, and she fixes Hordak when he’s broken, and she talks talks talks in the vents all the time. Entrapta is the loudest person Imp has ever met, louder than Hordak and Catra and even Force Captain Scorpia. She doesn’t ever try to be quiet. Imp thinks she was probably made to be loud. Imp loves it. He can hear her from almost any vent in the Fright Zone, and she’s always happy when he finds her. 

Entrapta says Imp is Fascinating. She listens to him Speak, and sometimes she asks him to use his own voice, even though he can’t Speak with it, and _she_ records _him._ Hordak is the only one who’s ever recorded him, and he hasn’t done that in a long time. Hordak has Studied Imp, so now he doesn’t need to anymore, but Entrapta Studies him herself, even though she has access to all of Hordak’s files. Entrapta likes Studying things she finds Fascinating, she says, and she says there’s always more to learn. Imp likes being Studied. Entrapta was going to Study how fast Imp could fly, but she left before that happened. Entrapta doesn’t like leaving projects unfinished. She always comes back to them, no matter what. She said so.

Imp curls up on himself.

She _said_ so.

—

Imp wakes up to a loud _crash._ He can’t believe he let himself fall asleep. Falling asleep while Sneaking is a mistake he never makes. But pressed up against the floor, the rumbling of the transport sounds like the machinery in Hordak’s Sanctum, and it made him so tired…

It’s no excuse. He Failed at Sneaking, but no one’s found him yet, so he hasn’t Failed his Mission yet.

He sniffs. The air smells like smoke.

Imp pops his head up just enough to look around. Nothing looks on fire, but Hordak’s taught him never to stay in a place that smells like smoke. Smoke means explosions.

Imp hopes they’re close to the village. The Whispering Woods are dangerous.

Scorpia shouts somewhere outside. Slowly, carefully, Imp climbs up a stack of crates. There’s no one in the transport. Imp lashes his tail. He hears more shouting—too much shouting, from more people than were in the transport. There’s a battle going on.

Imp grins. This is perfect. All he has to do is get outside without anyone noticing, wait until the fighting stops, and follow the Rebels back to their base. Maybe he’ll get lucky, and they’ll bring him right to Bright Moon. He wiggles in anticipation. The Mission is going so well. He’ll find Entrapta, and bring her home, and Hordak will say _well done,_ and everything will be good again.

The transport door is shut, but there’s a dent in one corner that’s just wide enough for Imp to slip through. Imp looks outside. They’re in a clearing, but there are trees all around it. He waits until no one’s near, and then squeezes through the gap as quickly as he can. As soon as he makes it out, he flattens himself to the ground and starts moving towards a tree. Nobody looks down to see him in the grass, and he reaches the tree easily. He bolts up it and hides in the branches, watching, waiting. He’s good at waiting.

...He’s all itchy, now. He hates grass. And there are _bugs_ on the tree. They keep climbing on his hands and feet and tail. Imp hates trees, too. 

The battle doesn’t take long. Scorpia isn’t doing a very good job following Catra’s orders. If it were Imp, he’d have made the battle last forever. It looks like the Rebels lost, though, so he guesses she didn’t Fail completely. 

Imp jumps from tree to tree, making his way around to where the Rebels are regrouping. Silently, he drops down onto the back of a Rebel, so lightly they don’t even notice. They’re carrying a big pack on their back, and Imp climbs down them and into an open pocket. No one sees him. The Rebels run away, because they’re weak, and Imp goes along with them, hidden away in the pack.

His plan is working. It’s working _so well._ Hordak and Entrapta will be so impressed.

The Rebels walk for a long time, but there’s no _rattle hum_ of machinery to make Imp tired, so he waits and waits, very patiently.

Suddenly, the Rebels stop walking on soft ground, and start walking on hard ground. Imp perks his ears up. _Tap tap tap,_ go their shoes. Hard ground means no more Woods. 

Imp peeks out of the pack as best he can. The pocket he’s has a flap he pulled down behind himself to hide better, so he can’t see much. This...might be Bright Moon. Imp’s only seen it at a distance, when Hordak brings him along to watch. It looks bright, and open, and there’s water. At this angle Imp can’t see the Moonstone anywhere. Shadow Weaver cared about the Moonstone, but Hordak just thinks it’s annoying. Still, he pointed it out to Imp once, so Imp will know it when he sees it.

He hopes this is Bright Moon. Bright Moon has Entrapta. Imp knows Entrapta is in Bright Moon, because Hordak had Catra monitor Dryl and there haven’t been any Entrapta sightings in Dryl, which means she has to be in Bright Moon, because that’s where Princesses go. Except Scorpia, but she doesn’t count.

This is so frustrating. Imp can’t tell if this is Bright Moon, so he can’t tell how close he is to completing his Mission. If he could just find the Moonstone—

The Rebel turns for a moment, and _there,_ there it is, Imp can just barely see the Moonstone out of the corner of his eye before the Rebel turns back around.

The Rebels keep walking, until the sliver of sky Inp can see turns into a roof. Imp feels giddy.

He’s in.

**Author's Note:**

> Imp dislikes Catra and Scorpia, but I very much do not. Imp dislikes most people.
> 
> I love getting comments, but I'm very bad at replying to them, so please don't feel obligated to comment if you don't want to. If you do, please know I love reading them, and appreciate it even if I take ages to respond (or don't respond at all). Hope you enjoy!
> 
> edit: i made a writing side blog! i don't know how much i'll use it, but it's [equivocaleternity.tumblr.com](https://equivocaleternity.tumblr.com/) if you want to check it out!


End file.
